Consumers Rights with Regards to Digital Content

Consumers WANT to pay for content they find value in paying for. For example: if I purchase content in any form (physical or digital) I should have the RIGHT to do with it what I want within a flexible fair use sense. Giving a song to a friend as opposed to giving a song to the entire world. And yes, I realize that in this day and age giving a song to a friend is potentially giving a song to the world this reinforces how asinine it is to try and limit it in the first place.

They key is to PAY for the content. I'm a collector. I usually spend just shy of 200$ on music (not media, music. Physical copies) a month. If I were to be forbidden by copyright law to do with as I saw fit (within acceptable limitations) with my purchases I'd blatantly and openly break that copyright law. As long as I can play the music I can record it and store it. I encode vinyl for the sheer pleasure of doing so.

I know I'm not the normal demographic when it comes to digital content. However, the business models to show that the majority of people want to pay so long as there are very few barriers to doing so. Once you make it complicated and/or people don’t the value in purchasing the content they will happily feel justified in thieving it in any which way they can.

I think some musicians/bands/artists have got it right. Give it away/payment online. Let people pay for physical copies if they want and let them tour till their hearts content.

Comments

MIKE649 — 2010–05–13 20:19:59 EDT wrote

Agree, we should be able to pay for the content that we want. Buying cds for $15 — $20 and finding out that there is actually 2 songs that are worth listening too. I have bought some of the classical albums in LP, 8 track, cassette and cd, all of them have either worn out or the technology out dated. Now I only down load and pay for the tracks that I want, which is great, and make back up copies.

brashley46 — 2010–07–08 21:19:31 EDT wrote

Artists, not recording industry or publishing industry giants, ought to be the legal owners of copyright and able to determine how to distribute their works online. I buy e–books, for example, to read on my Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, on which DRM’d ebooks simply will not read … so I refrain from purchasing DRM’d versions of ebooks. Same for music I pay on my MP3 player. I can't lug a CD player around with me everywhere, if I want music on the subway I listen to MP3s of the music I have paid for. And I buy tracks and albums from CDBaby. All legal, and it should remain legal.